Thing 5

OK, I admit it. I'm a Facebook junkie. I use it to keep in touch with my kids, family members, fellow teachers, etc. as well as play some games and use some of the groups for my graduate course. When the school district unblocked Facebook and MySpace, I thought they were nuts. Since I have started using some of the Facebook features to help me with my graduate class I can certainly see more educational benefits to it. The biggest benefit would be the group page. A teacher could create a group page for their class and post helpful hints and resources for assignments, answer questions, let the STUDENTS answer questions, and keep track of what the students are saying and where they are struggling.
I have not been a Twitter user to this point. I have resisted because I really did not see the point of people just making random comments about their own life. I do like the idea of back-channeling however. Students would be more comfortable using their phones to send questions rather than shout out in class. Of course, that opens a whole different set of problems as far as classroom management goes. I will probably go ahead and try a Twitter account and see how I like it this year as I have multiple other technology opportunities set up for my students. I would like to follow David Warwick and Vicki Davis, both of whose blogs I've been reading for a while now.